Friday, February 3, 2012

Milano-Torino, Oldest Italian Classic Race, Returns

RCS Sports has announced that it will re-launch "Milano-Torino", the oldest Italian one-day classic. The race, which was last took place in 2007, will be held on September 26th. RCS Sports has signed a three year agreement, ending in 2014, with the Associazione Ciclistica Arona which will be responsible for organizing the race.

The first edition of Milano-Torino was held in 1876. The first race was won by Paolo Magretti, an engineering student who participated along with seven other competitors. The race began at 4:00 a.m., Magretti was the first to cross the finish line on via Giulio Cesare in Torino in late afternoon to the cheering crowd which numbered 10,000.

Only four of the eight starters finished the 150 km race which took 11 hours and 15 minutes at an average of 13.3 km/hour. In the most recent editions the distance has been 199 km.

It's worth noting that this race has been put on the calendar three days before Il Lombardia which this year has been moved up to September 29th.

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1 comment:

Great news! Larry only wishes they'd brought it back in 2011 so he could have seen all three - Milano Torino, Gran Piemonte and Giro di Lombardia. He know's that's no longer the correct name for the "race of the falling leaves" but thinks they shouldn't mess with the names of ANY of the five monuments of cycling!